KC Confidential

Maty Mauk

Time for some navel-gazing…

Following the Missouri Tigers stunning (and impressive) win at Georgia this past Saturday, it’s time to re-read some of those early season tea leaves. As well as look ahead to the Chiefs historic 6-0 (going on 7-0) start.

“Missouri and the Chiefs are doing a lot of things very similarly,” says sports scribe Craig Glazer of Stanford & Sons. “The breaks have been going their way, but Missouri just caught a bad break and lost their starting quarterback. And the Chiefs are in a precarious position because they’re using a guy who’s little and good and they’re over-using him.”

That would be running back Jamaal Charles.

Next up? Continue reading →

Why do promoters insist on inflating and exaggerating attendance figures?

If you stop and think about it, the answer’s somewhat obvious. Because size matters and smaller crowds can lend the perception that an event like last weekend’s New Age gang bang WaterFire on the Plaza is somehow less important or significant than its organizers would like it to be thought of.

Here’s how Popular Mechanics story “The Curious Science of Counting a Crowd” put it: 

“Crowd-size estimation is tough for people who want to do it right. But when turnout implies clout, then politicians and event organizers have plenty of motivation to exaggerate the head count. Through careful research, though, it is possible to make better crowd-size estimates that aren’t the result of political bias.” Continue reading →

Think of it, as a variation on the if you build, they will come concept…

If you hype, they will believe…maybe even come. So it is with the brief history of WaterFire in Kansas City, one of the duller, more overhyped events to hit the Cowtown.

First a few kind words about organizer Karen Holland.

Holland, who brought the Cow Parade to KC in the early 2000s – and for her trouble was pilloried by Star art critic Alice Thorson and pretty much every legit artist in town – is a well-intentioned woman. She truly believes that mixing burning pylons on an open sewer like Brush Creek with New Age music wafting through the air is a winner. Another Plaza Lighting Ceremony or Plaza Art Fair in the making. Hey, for Holland and a finite number of New Agers, it probably is.

And maybe this baby will grow and succeed despite its pretentiousness. Continue reading →

Holy crap, I’m trapped in Excelsior Springs and the bloom is off the rose…

After staying at the historic Arlington in Hot Springs, Arkansas last spring I had a brainstorm. Flattering online photos aside, the Arlington was a dump – beautiful outside, run down inside.

Which got me to thinking, why drag all the way down to Arkansas when the newly remodeled Elms in Excelsior Springs is but a hop, skip and jump away?  Continue reading →

Not Tony’s Kansas City
a parody

There’s just no escaping the touchy issue of anonymous comments online…

The latest: Pitch editor Scott Wilson‘s dissing of the Kansas City Star‘s new Facebook-only comments requirement.

“How’s that new commenting system workin’ out for ya, KC Star?” Wilson’s headline entreats.

“Media watchers and trolls alike took note last month (actually in August) when the daily began requiring every commenter to log in through his or her Facebook account,” Wilson writes. “The idea was to avoid another trollpocalypse such as the one that followed the Star‘s coverage of the Missouri State Fair’s clowngate crisis. Now every story that allows comments at kcstar.com kicks off that section with this sunny verbiage:”

Continue reading →

Johnny Dare

Celebs who are notorious for being curt and often rude to local hero worshippers. Starting with George Brett, Tom Watson and Len Dawson to name but three. There are some nice guys, too. Channel 9 anchor Larry Moore and Johnny Dare, for example.

But for the purposes of this item, let’s stick with the former. The celebrities we worship that always manage to act nice around most members of the media or when the cameras are rolling, but are all too often dicks when fans come up and want to praise them or – heaven forbid – ask for an autograph.

When brings us to this story in the National Enquirer about KC and Saturday Night Live alum Jason Sudeikis. Continue reading →